This week Emma and I are in Lorne, Victoria to attend the Australian Indigenous Tourism Conference (AITC). We presented on Day 1 and it was great to connect with everyone from around Australia working in Indigenous Tourism. Our presentation Indigenous Tourism – The reality of building a sustainable business focused talking about the key components of building a sustainable business over time.

In our paper, we referenced the Critical Growth Challenges as outlined in Supply Nation and First Australian’s Capital’s latest paper Indigenous Business Growth. These include processes and capabilities, business skills, entrepreneurial and business mindset, networks and support, start-up funding and scale-up funding.

While there are many things that go into making a successful business, Emma and I, in our 30-minute presentation, touched on  just a few things:

1. Building a plan
2. Keeping up with trends
3. Keeping up with technology
4. Are you ‘crunching the numbers’ correctly?
5. Beware the ‘vanity’ metrics
6. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint

Of course, we finished with one of our favourite inspirational sayings for new micro-businesses –

Start where you are
Use what you have
Do what you can